


What could have been

by Genoscissors



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Basically me rambling about an alternate version of V3 where everything is (hopefully) better, Canon Compliant, Expands on the extended DRU, F/F, Fix-It, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kinda, New Dangan Ronpa V3 Spoilers, Retelling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-17 20:17:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18105713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Genoscissors/pseuds/Genoscissors
Summary: No writer wants to create a bad story. So when a certain Team Danganronpa member is given the privilege of developing a character, they leap at the opportunity! But unfortunately, Team Danganronpa doesn't always stick to their ideas 100%.This is just me recreating the backstories and plot of V3, whilst giving some insight to the outide world and Team Danganronpa. So obviously, there's gonna be spoilers. Content warnings will be at the start of each chapter.Part 1 - Tenko Chabashira





	What could have been

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have been salty about Tenko for as long as I can remember, so here's how I'd wanna change her. 
> 
> Content warning: Implied rape.

Tenko Chabashira, the ultimate aikido master, and a huge lesbian. Strong, determined, cheerful, always ready to protect others, she was going to be the next Olivier (‘DR28: Perfect hope, Prevailing despair’, regarded as one of the best seasons, after 7 of course) for Danganronpa. Now, a certain amount of care would be required to make Tenko into a good character - with flaws, growth, relatability and everything that would go into any character. And it was time for Sumiye Rezubi - a writer for Team Danganronpa since season 49 - to try and come up with the direction to take her. 

Now, Sumiye hadn’t had a responsibility this big since she was asked to take care of the class rabbits in middle school, so she was excited to have received the honour. Of course, there were some guidelines - obviously she couldn’t derail the entire plot for a side character (such things were reserved for ahoge characters). But with the current plan, Tenko had at least until chapter 4 to develop, unless they went with the backup plan of making her a survivor. And Sumiye was going to do her damned best to make sure those 4 chapters showed off her highs, lows, and development. 

 

But first, she took a look at the reference sheet:

Tenko Chabashira:  
Height: 5’5  
Weight: 115lbs  
Chest: 35”  
Blood type: B  
DOB: January 9th  
Likes: TBC  
Dislikes: TBC  
Notes: Ultimate aikido master  
Should start the game distrusting males. A lesbian.  
Takes part in: Insect meet-and-greet, magic show, fs event, neo world problem, potential for others.

Sumiye smiled at that last part. Sometimes the LGBT rep wasn’t so good, but she knew Tenko was going to be much better than the likes of ‘Narrator’ (DR38, she shuddered at the thought of it), or all the rivals who just happened to be the only canon ace people in their respective games. 

Ever since she’d been a small child, Sumiye had been attracted to girls. This may or may not have started with Sakura Oogami, back when her parents were getting her through all the games and seasons quickly to catch her up. Peko Pekoyama only confirmed how much she loved girls, and she soon found her love extending to every single girl in the entire series, and eventually her now-wife. And this was the exact love she was going to give Tenko. 

 

For starters: a believable backstory. Now, the events in Tenko’s childhood would be what shaped her every move in the killing game, so this couldn’t just be waived off for just FTEs, without being relevant to her personality in the main game (she had seen this happen to too many girls, never again). There hadn’t been many guidelines luckily, and all that was definite was her wariness of men… some research was in order. 

As a child, Tenko was a very rowdy girl, and would often find it hard not to get confrontational when faced with adversary. One day, when she was 8 years old, she was playing with her good male friend when she came across a group of older students harassing a girl she didn’t know. Her good friend ran away, but Tenko tried to defend the girl. Unfortunately, she was 8 and weak, and the group had no problem defending themselves - although they were reluctant to hit a girl. Tenko was a little mad at this, taunting ‘What, you afraid of me?’, and this provoked one of them to retaliate… and it did not end well for Tenko. 

Tenko recovered quickly, but her pride didn’t. She insisted that she had to learn martial arts, and was willing to do whatever it took if it meant she could protect those in need. She saved up her pocket money until she could pay for just a semester of aikido classes, and practiced everyday outside of the academy. Her parents were then willing to pay her way, having dismissed it as a passing craze before. By the time she was 11, she was already the best in her prefecture - winning championship titles as easy as a cheetah wins a race against a snail. And she would try and patrol the streets to stop any harassment (but she had to be home by dark).

At 13, she was offered a place at the elite Stone College Prep - a school specialising in sporting achievements (and a little nod back to Supotsun from DR43). It just happened that there were no less than 3 experts martial artists affiliated with that school - Bushido, Aiko and Seiboko. Bushido was the tough one, always wanting to push his students, right up to their limits. He was a firm believer that you don’t know what you’re capable of until you’re forced that far. Aiko focused on technique, harsh but fair. But she never insulted someone just for the heck of it, and she wouldn’t tolerate any mean words between students either. And Seiboko… he was a bastard. 

Seiboko seemed like a nice guy. He was always encouraging his students, telling them how great they were doing. He was very energetic, and if you were short on money he would always be willing to buy you a meal, stating how he loved spending time with his students outside of school… no, he’d always buy you a meal, money problems or not. Especially for his female students…

 

Sumiye shuddered whilst writing those lines, checking her research folder again. The next part was going to hurt to write, but she had to do it as respectfully as she could.

 

Tenko admired these 3 greatly, and made several friends during her first year - including 18 year old Maria - a senior student set to become a teaching assistant for Seiboko as a part time job after graduation. She was going to a university near the school to study Anatomy and Physiology, and might as well earn some extra on the side whilst there, right? 

Over winter break of Tenko’s first year, the martial arts department (about 20 members) went on their annual training trip. Although the older students seemed to think of it as a vacation, lots of sightseeing, plenty of fun. But whilst Aiko was giving the students a tour of Kodokan, Tenko noticed that two people were absent. Upon asking, she was told that Maria was feeling unwell, and Seiboko had stayed at the hotel to help her (plus it was policy that no child could be unattended on the excursion). And when they returned, Tenko found Maria crying, but not wanting to talk about what happened. Tenko just assumed she was still feeling unwell, and told Aiko about it - who went to comfort her. 

When school officially restarted next semester, Tenko was called into the headmaster’s office, where Bushido and Aiko were also waiting. She was initially scared she had done something wrong, but was only asked a few question about the absent instructor. She answered truthfully, and went on with her day. A couple of days later, she was up late cleaning the dojo, and overheard a conversation between Bushido and Aiko - who seemed to have assumed no one else was around. 

She couldn’t recall the entire thing if you asked her, but she remembered the jist of it: Aiko was claiming that Seiboko needed to be thrown in jail. Bushido was less angered, saying it was Maria’s word against his. By this point, Tenko had a few suspicions of what was going on. Bushido also mentioned that Seiboko was an excellent teacher: ‘Even if this alleged incident occurred, it was almost certainly a mistake, not worth destroying a career over.” To this day, Tenko has never heard anyone as angry as Aiko was at that moment. 

The next day, Tenko went to talk to Maria about what she’d heard. The girl initially denied anything had happened, before just briefly mentioning what had happened on the trip, but not giving any detail that would disturb the now 14 year old girl. Tenko wanted to confront Seiboko about it, but Maria begged her not to. She shouldn’t kick up a fuss, it wasn’t worth it. To this, Tenko only responded: ‘I learnt Aikido to defend those in need. If I can’t help you now, then what was the point?’

Tenko attacked Seiboko by the school’s lake, catching him by surprise. However, she was soon restrained, as he was bigger, older, stronger… and Tenko was scared of him. For the first time in her life, she was absolutely terrified, and she lost her will to fight.

She was expelled for assaulting a teacher, even when she tried to defend herself. Aiko stood up for her a little, but was still disappointed that Tenko had done something so extreme. Bushido was not very sympathetic either… and Tenko never looked back. Well, she did. As it turned out, Seiboko went to court, but was found not guilty of all charges - continuing teaching. Aiko resigned soon after. Maria dropped out of university and moved back to her parents on the other side of the country. 

Tenko couldn’t join another high school due to her record, and lived with her own parents, still training, but on her own now. She was fueled by anger, why didn’t her friend get the justice she deserved? Why had people defended that bastard? No… now she thought about it, only men had defended him, but their voices drowned out the protesting women. It was unacceptable, something was wrong. Would her father have acted like Bushido? She didn’t want to believe it, but the more she observed her father’s attitudes towards the news, the more she thought it - men were trash. 

And she lived like this until she got a certain letter from Hope’s Peak Academy. 

 

Would that be good? Sumiye hoped it was. Of course, it was unlikely they’d go into that much detail in her FTEs, but it was good to try and flesh it out as much as possible (just in case of that coveted spin-off novel all character writers dreamed about). Or did it all seem to be just about 1 event… maybe she could add some more details. 

 

Tenko first crush was at 9 years old, with the smartest girl in her class. She was so cool… and those glasses and short pale hair were super cute! She was rejected when she confessed her feelings, but there were no hard feelings about it, and they were friends until Tenko moved away to Stone College. But Tenko always seemed to have an admiration for calm, clever girls. 

She also enjoyed caring for children. She had a couple of cousins, both 4-5 years younger than her. And for some time, Tenko seemed to be roped into babysitting every weekend. But she didn’t mind, they were cute. And as they grew older, and more informed, Tenko made some good friends, which was lovely. It’s not good to be at knives with your family after all. And after Tenko had been kicked out of school, she spent some time getting to know the neighbour’s children, becoming incredibly protective of them. 

 

Yeah, that’s nice! Great work Sumiye! Now to work on her in-game actions. Man, Sumiye already felt so much of a connection with Tenko. She couldn’t wait to see this girl on screen. 

Oh, but first she had a visit from a vague acquaintance, a friend of a friend, ex-employee of Team Danganronpa. The older woman had approached her one day and asked if they could get coffee, and she accepted the offer. 

“So, you’re a character writer this season? That’s a great honour.” 

“It sure is.” Sumiye smiled, proud to know word had spread like this.

“I was a character writer back in the day myself.” 

“Oh really? For who?”

The woman looked around cautiously, as if she was afraid the other patrons would pounce if they heard her words. And knowing Danganronpa fans, they might… But she spoke softly enough that her words were for Sumiye’s ears only: “Hai Kyu.” Sumiye recoiled in shock from those words. 

“The ultimate haiku girl in thirty- thirty-”

“-38. Yes.” 

“I… I don’t know what to say. Hai was uh… interesting and-” 

“Save your words. The end product was a bastardisation of my vision.” 

“Huh?” 

“Contrary to popular belief, none of us wanted to create a bad season. I saw first hand the amount of work the original writers - myself included - devoted to 38. But for some reason, the execs of Team Danganronpa only kept half of our work, and what was left made no sense. Character inconsistencies, the lack of moral grey within the blackened, the LGBT crisis, you’ve heard the complaints. We didn’t plan that.” 

“Alright…” 

“Have you read the fic: 38 rewritten. The one that was a collaboration between several AO2D (Archive of our Dangan) users?” 

“Of course, I wouldn’t be surprised if half the world did. It was damned good”

“Well the users collaborating were the original 38 writers - myself included - who were fired after the failure that season was. We wrote that fic to try and show what could have been, should have been.” 

“That’s… I don’t know what to think. Why would they do that?”

“Because they wanted the season to fail. I don’t know why. Maybe they wanted to fire half the staff, maybe the executives made a bet whilst drunk. Maybe they wanted everyone to be able to say ‘well, it was better than 38’ for any low points in the future.” 

“And why are you telling me this?” 

“In case it happens again.” And she left, leaving money for both their coffees, and a generous tip. Well that was cryptic… but it just meant she’d have to make such a good character they couldn’t possibly change her! 

 

So, onto Tenko’s actions in the main game. In the prologue (after all the students were given their fake memories and outfits of course), Tenko was first met in the hallway, and seemed to immediately dislike the first protagonist - Shuichi. Later, when the killing game was being explained in the game, she met Himiko, and immediately her ‘big sister’ protective instincts kicked in. The two of them became friends, Himiko appreciating someone looking after her. Tenko wanted Himiko to be a little more active, asking to train together, but her attempts were generally fruitless. So Tenko settled for training whilst Himiko cheered her on from a bench. 

Tenko was dismissive towards the guys, to say the least. She actively avoided Gonta, and Kaito’s habits of slapping people on the back as a greeting was not fun - and he ended up getting flipped the first time he attempted it. He was royally pissed off to say the least, but Amami got him to calm down, they should respect Tenko’s boundaries. Kaito obliged at first, but still wanted to show Tenko that not all men were bad. 

But then, Kaito ended up dead, Tenko the main suspect and Tsumugi found as the actual killer (but her execution was faked, and she ruled from backstage from then on out as the mastermind).

In the second chapter, Tenko thought over the recent events. Tsumugi had been the killer… Kaito didn’t have ill intentions, just slightly misguided ones… so she’d have to swallow her pride. She spoke to Saihara, and said she wanted to try and get to know some of the guys there. This was the start of her trying to get over her fears. Saihara suggested they spend some time with Kiibo and Amami, and it wasn’t too bad. But she insisted that Maki needed to be there too, so she wasn’t outnumbered. Wait no, it’d still be 2-3, but Maki was tough, and the two of them could work together if the boys tried anything. 

Around the same time, she got closer to Kirumi. Tenko developed a crush, but knew she shouldn’t be forceful about it - as that would only make people hate her. After all, it was Kirumi’s job to be nice to people, she wasn’t getting special treatment. But regardless, she tried to find little ways of helping Kirumi, even if she denied any offers of assistance. Small things, like brushing crumbs off the tables after she ate, or attempting to cook one of the evening meals, claiming to be craving her own cooking. Kirumi saw this, and became friends with the girl. 

She attended Himiko’s magic show as her assistant, and Angie offered to help as well. But in the middle of the performance, Saihara ended up dead, and Ouma was the killer… Tenko thought more that evening, and comforted Kaede after the trial. She spoke some more with Amami and Kiibo, and then Hoshi, and they were alright, but still not fully comfortable to be around without another girl or two. She was still freaked out by Korekiyo and Gonta, so she decided to put that off for another day. 

She kept being friends with Kirumi, and the maid allowed her to help with breakfast occasionally. Things were fairly peaceful (as much as they could be in a killing game), until the Insect meet-and-greet event. Gonta was running around school, trying to kidnap the students to his lab. And he found Tenko… who didn’t react well to it. She broke down and had a panic attack, causing Gonta to panic and apologise. But Tenko didn’t register this… She was found by Korekiyo, who asked what was wrong, and on catching the basics through sobs, they apologised profusely. Apparently Gonta had been showing Korekiyo his lab, and Korekiyo had mentioned offhand how good it would be if everyone loved bugs the way Gonta did. And that may have been what caused Gonta to go on this rampage. 

Korekiyo stayed with Tenko for a while, trying to comfort her. Apparently they’d had panic attacks before, and knew that what she needed was someone to be there for her. They offered to go find a female student instead, but Tenko was fine with Korekiyo. 

Anyway, Gonta was found dead the morning after the meet-and-greet, and Angie ended up dying during the investigation. Himiko was distraught, and Tenko did her best to comfort her. By the end of the trial, it still couldn’t be determined who killed Angie, but Miu was found guilty of Gonta’s murder, and was executed. 

Throughout chapter 4, Himiko decided to start training with Tenko, and Kaede ended up trying aikido out. Tenko also held hands with Kirumi for the first time, and was super excited about it! 

But she died in the Neo World Program… 

Oh and: her hotel event! Tenko would see Kaede as a friend from her high school, and confess her love. Kaede accepted it, and Tenko made her promise they’d take it slow. “I’m a little scared of doing… it... So can we just hold hands for now?” Kaede agreed, and eventually they fell asleep back to back, Tenko seeming very content. 

 

Woohoo! That was good, she hoped. She would leave the fanservice scene to someone else though, she didn’t feel comfortable writing something like that. 

But then she found out the death order had changed drastically, and Tenko was going to die in chapter 3 instead. Sumiye quickly changed a few things to fit Tenko’s arc in one less chapter, and thought she did a pretty good job! 

And she had to change the hotel event to be way more platonic, seeing as Saihara would now be the other person. He was still another student at the high school, who had just beaten her in a sparring match, so she was asking if he had a secret. Later on, she would hint at Seiboko having been sent to prison in this fantasy. 

Sumiye submitted her ideas confidently. She had been working closely with all the other writers, to make sure everyone’s ideas lined up. And they all thought this season was going to be great! Maybe not 7 or 28 great, more like 25 great. But that was still pretty good! 

 

Then Danganronpa V3 came out for real. And Sumiye was horrified at what she saw… 

“Tenko is just a walking stereotype, so bad!” 

“I love her, but this is not good lebian rep :(“

“EWWWWW TENMIKO SUCKS! SHES SO PREDATORY WTF!!!” 

“Ok, what the fuck was that love hotel?”


End file.
